this effect is to the extreme in trading... only 5% win, 1% win enough to live on... yet suckers keep coming, all thinking they belong to the 1%. forget average.. our goals are much higher here.
Most professions have a uniformed book or set of books to perform their jobs after you gone from no schooling to ten years of schooling, CPA's, Physicians, Engineers etc... But in trading, you have to write your own book from having no/little knowledge for handful of years, might think you are onto right direction and can lie to self repeatedly, as thoughts of quitting would be far more not pleasurable. Most other professions have great schools to direct you toward a specific specialty, but trading is far different. And early signs of doing well, thinking you have a gift others don't have-you get over confident and that lack of knowledge spirals into losing all that you made by luck and ton more in following years. Other professions, when you make an error, others around you to come to your aid, not in trading-you have given others your money. But right their is huge difference between working for others who need for you to succeed and owning your own business, at some point either cause lack of funds or gotten way down inside of you reached that cavern than you knew all along you were going to have to make changes. A time you have to accept you don't have a clue of what works and learn to test better, find the "edge" by testing. Test more in when not to take trades and how to manage the trades ongoing. Spend more time in the boring areas of trading but at some point they become best areas of trading and challenging self. Many will say it is them against HFTs or automation, but in reality some don't learn to adapt, it all is self challenging self, how close can we get to zero risk. imo
So truth. Wallstreeters are members of the "holy club" and they see their world stollen by Chicago Mercantile Exchange, thank to Mr. Lei Melamed. I am often quoting his name because I still wonder his people are not grateful - the majority of modern traders us having access to the markets thanks the revolution he did. Very interesting, I still see trading as kind of very special humans mastery. But for sure one of the keys of profitableness is to see it the way you do. It tools me three years just to believe that it is possible, going on Tradersexpo and talking directly, studying with teachers all that to get free from conditioning and Suisse banisters brainwashing. It is normal for you because of your background and previous experience, you even use to risk your life more then ones, which is all not common. I hope one day most of the people will be taught to see trading the way you do. As for now, we are called to bring experts for our trial in 2019, to testify that profitable trading is real! This is the world we are living in today. Malicious losing people are keep printing desecrating false articles about traders, showing us as a kind of crazy herd with a few occasionally lucky. The successful traders ( I believe institutional's traders are different herd), which arrordingly CME are 14 million, ( mire tgen lawyers), well we apparently are not interested to contest all this. The time will show, the time is changing towards the victory of the Truth. The deferent types of reality destroyers, comploters, are slowly have to adopt to this world of today. And their plays will fall, and the true value of the enterprises will be discovered by the markets, by us, simple traders. That is why Amazon, Wholefood, Facebook, and Google are blooming and all type of old style manipulations are felling.
Dear Handle 123, I am overwhelmed of joy to have possibility to read your posts again, thank you! Would be pity to leave place to the hysterical duo, which is above average in their way of accusing, lying and insulting. Returning to this thread's theme and your post, I do beleive that HFT and automated systems make the market manipulations almost impossible and this is their main value.
A lot of people talk about psychology issues but I don't know how it plays in traders' mind unless they are beginners. Once you know how wall street drives prices, you get no fear. Their trading strategy is quite straightforward. You only come across psychology issues when you are gambling.
You definitely see a plethora of cognitive biases in professional traders/portfolio managers. It varies from the a garden variety overconfidence in relatively junior people to pretty much every effect in the book, from anchoring to endowment effect. It's true even for systematic managers, though it usually has less obvious effects if they have a good process in place.
You may have a point but I don't really agree with cognitive biases in professional traders/portfolio managers unless you are referring to people who are pretending to be professional. There is one exception though - that is when you know you are going against a trend but you want to make some profit on retracement/or you believe prices are on the top or bottom. Obviously, going against a trend involves more risk. I have seen a hedge fund going bankrupt heavily when oil was on the way to $147 and they thought they sold high when in fact they sold oil contracts in the middle.